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ANSABE?

NOTE: In order to help you comprehend this blog post, let’s enhance your vocabulary first.

Webtrovert: someone who is shy/ introvert in real life, but turns into full-on extroverted party animal on internet forums and sites

Freudian Click: sending an email to someone by mistake

Facebook Wit: the intelligent humor that nearly everyone seems to gain when they have half an hour to contemplate a witty response

Antisocial networking: using a social networking site to connect to other people but never communicating with those people once a connection has been established

Post-acquaintance friend request: the friend request sent right after meeting someone for the first time

Killing two pigs with one bird: a modern version of the popular saying, “killing two birds with one stone“; derived from the popular PC game, Angry Birds

Feed the beast: to send a text message to a high-maintenance partner in order to keep them sweet and avoid them getting upset that you’re ignoring them

source: urbandictionary.com

MORE THAN DEFINING

During the 90’s…

Parents know everything.

Just a few years back…

Don't ask. GOOGLE IT.

Aside from defining a word, dictionaries have one more purpose in human’s life: to lessen our “huh?” reactions every time an unfamiliar word is mentioned.

But the words we’ve defined above show more than that. They go beyond defining their own meanings.

They reflect our culture and behavior. They help one visualize what we do, what we think, what we know and how we understand the things around us. The words usually defined in Urban Dictionary are words related to social media and how we, the consumers, use it.

They tell us that we have the power to define our worlds. Every word defined in Urban dictionary is user-generated — they come from the public. Anyone can add and contribute to the exhaustive list of words in the website. User-generated content (UGC) websites, such as Wikis, blogs, forums, etc., are very empowering. They allow everyone’s voice to be heard and to eventually make an impact. To help you realize this, go ahead and have fun reading the entries in Urban Dictionary.

They permit and restrict. I’m not being ageist, but most of our grannies won’t understand words that are commonly related to new technology such as, BRB, GTG, ROTFL, LMAO, and teen talk, such as, epic fail and FTW. People who use these words create an invisible barrier which leaves other people, who cannot relate, out of the circle.

These are some of the reasons why there is a need to update our dictionaries.

RT: “WOOT WOOT! SEXTING NOW.” (BTW, did you get what this means?)

According to an article in Yahoo! Philippines, Oxford Dictionary included retweet, sexting and woot in its 400 new word entries to the 12th edition of their English dictionary, “some of which are a testament to the continuing evolution of language especially in the time of the Internet” (Yahoo! Ph). This expanding list of new words to be defined reflect the constant technological, cultural, behavioral and psychological changes in our world.

7 thoughts on “ANSABE?”

(Erica, it actually made my day when I read “hitting two pigs with one bird.”)

ANYWAY, it is a reality that teenagers use social media to exercise their “power” in permitting and restricting people of their choice. In fact, social media is a source of authority to the “powerless” and “unheard” population in society.

I’ve been seeing a lot of words which existed because of the internet and social media. I guess we have these new words now to account for the various new experiences of people involving the internet and social media. 🙂

I’d have to agree that even through just creating words, we create our realities. We shape how we view what we do and think. Moreover, I’d have to agree that people use words to restrict those who can be inside the circle. For instance, we younger ones have our own words for the same things that older people call a different name. It’s about setting ourselves apart from other people and creating our identities.

However, I think, as OrCommunicologists, we should always remember to create our identities without building a fence around us to separate ourselves from the “others.” After all, we have an important role of keeping the communication lines in our organizations open, right? 🙂